LETTERS
LETTERS Hell on wheels In his November review of Scott Bottles's Los Angeles and the Automobile, Timothy Noah (and I assume Mr. Bottles) never mentions the real reason for the disappearance of...
...Abuses of the court there certainly are: dockets are crammed, for instance, with auto accident cases, many of them phony...
...Granted the tobacco companies have known longer and better about the dangers of smoking, but that's a quibble...
...Dividing blacks this way protects against Republican challenges in urban areas and prevents the black population from reaching a point in any district where a white incumbent Democrat might be challenged within his own primary...
...Electing a black gets them a seat at the table and through seniority that seat may end up behind a committee chairman's nameplate...
...Bottles) never mentions the real reason for the disappearance of the electrified transit system of the greater Los Angeles area...
...I don't know whether or not the "Napkin Bill" was a good one, but to attack it for stopping tobacco litigation seems to me short-sighted and inconsistent with the views you have otherwise expressed so admirably...
...My experience observing the Voting Rights Act in action counters the theoretical conclusions...
...we could authorize their using great speeches of the past...
...Underpayments averaged $591, overpayments $1,069 ." Do you mean to imply that there was intentional overpayment...
...Epps heaps more scorn on yuppies than the Monthly ever did on fat people...
...The General Motors-Standard Oil consortium had a nifty no-lose situation, however, since commuters were going to be supporting the auto and oil industries whether they chose to drive or take the bus...
...The implication of the review (and the book) in question is that Angelenos drive so much because they love the automobile...
...From fouling the air to drowning out our conversations to littering the land to weighing down our economy to being responsible for more deaths than all our wars put together, the automobile is a blight on our society...
...There were those who believed that the last original thought in religion had been thought long ago, and all else were simply variations on a theme...
...That changed only because of the stringent interpretation of the law by the Justice Department...
...The raw figures show nothing...
...that's because it depends on novel theories of legal liability which would vastly extend the tort law's scope and abusiveness...
...Roberts's first question is that tobacco is an addictive drug...
...I remembered several serious discussions my colleagues and I held when we were in seminary about borrowing ideas from preachers long dead...
...But something tells me the Postal Service will find a way to avoid having the great abolitionist as a common adornment of our first-class mail...
...A less lawyer-intensive alternative to civil court that would still compensate tobacco victims is also conceivable...
...On a national level, the power of the black vote would increase dramatically if anyone could ever imagine a significant number of blacks voting Republican...
...First, there has to be a national Republican willing and able to appeal to the black voter...
...RICHARD A. MOORE Alexandria, Virginia In praise of yuppies Mr...
...Garrett Epps, in attacking the cover of your August issue as perpetuating a stereotype of fat people, continues to perpetuate one about yuppies, people who in my experience are hardworking and who spend their money on quality products...
...Millions of Americans got hooked on it before the era of government mandated health warnings...
...The new "transit company" then proceeded to replace the 1,100-mile electric transit system with diesel buses that had to share the road with automobiles...
...There were also those, such as myself, who wrote our own stuff...
...Second, why defend abuses to the tort litigation system (which in other contexts you rightly attack) just because you dislike tobacco heavies who might suffer if such abuses continue...
...As Glastris admits, tobacco litigation is a very long shot...
...But that's the chicken-and-egg problem...
...When they try to quit, every cell in their bodies demands nicotine...
...Assuming a perfectly random distribution of errors, overpayments will always exceed underpayments because no underpayment can exceed the amount due, whereas there is no limit on the overpayments...
...Many of his conclusions are hard to argue with on a theoretical level...
...JOSEPH CEJKA Lake Havasu City, Arizona Tobacco Torts I have two questions about Paul Glastris's attack on the California "Napkin Bill" ["Frank Fat's Napkin," December], which he condemns because it deprives smokers of the right to blame the tobacco industry and collect money for their misfortune...
...While this is certainly true, the root of the passion for the private car is corporate piggishness...
...I thought it delightful in the wake of the Biden scandal to be reminded that plagiarism, both homiletical and political, is ageless...
...Body pride" is not a snobbery as Mr...
...Roberts's comment about "regulatory indolence" suggests he is savvy enough to recognize that such an alternative system won't come about until the tobacco companies start losing liability cases in court...
...C. ROSENDALE Stevensville, Maryland The voter and the egg Peter H. Schuck's article ["What Went Wrong With the Voting Rights Act," November] is important because it examines several aspects of the act that deserve more debate...
...In fact, in 1949 a Chicago federal jury convicted GM of having criminally conspired with Standard Oil of California, Firestone Tire, and others to replace electric transit with gas- or diesel-powered buses and to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transportation companies throughout the country...
...The Reverend Joe Biden I enjoyed the item in the November "Tilting at Windmills" concerning Benjamin Franklin's recollections of the Presbyterian divine who borrowed sermons...
...He has a point when he refers to "chronic obesity," but most overweight individuals do not fall into that category...
...Black populations are pie-sliced to insure the safety of white incumbents...
...There are numerous scientific studies which document the benefits of exercise and weight control...
...To imply that those who cannot overcome the drug are "unfortunate by their own folly" is a cruel misunderstanding of the nature of addiction...
...The one time black voters are truly appreciated by white Democrats is during reapportionment...
...Epps states...
...But Mr...
...My county had a black population of over 40 percent for most of this century and yet until very recently had never elected a black to any of the various city councils or to the county commission...
...In the parish now, I cite when borrowing, perhaps only mentioning, "I've read this somewhere" or "in the course of my research," and get on with trying to elucidate...
...That's probably why Ralph Nader supports the trial lawyers in their self-centered efforts to expand litigation...
...I'll accept that packing minorities into a few districts reduces their influence in the much larger number of districts controlled by whites...
...So it's worth mentioning that part of the deal behind the "Napkin Bill" was an agreement, pushed by the trial lawyers and accepted by the legislature, not to pursue an obvious solution: no-fault insurance...
...Biden would make a fine Presbyterian minister...
...For current divines, it would be better to memorize some great sermons and deliver them with force and elocution...
...If fat people have feelings, so do the yuppies against whom he rails...
...the "victims" have known too...
...We found someone with the same idea, quoted them for authority's sake, and got on with the business of finishing school...
...HAL RIEDL Baltimore, Maryland The following was printed in the Baltimore Sun, date unknown, and shows the only time the postal rates were reduced in history (see 1917-1919...
...We have been taught to love the car, and now we are both figuratively and literally dying by the car...
...As a reporter covering ten sessions of the Georgia General Assembly, I recall little difference in the voting patterns of a white state representative with a 10 percent black district and one with a 40 percent black district...
...For the reality is, most ideas in sermons are borrowed and propounded with great force...
...But disciplined yuppies have no choice but to work out and remain healthy...
...It would beat the hell out of the tripe that now passes for preaching...
...Otherwise, they commonly voted with what were termed the "woolhats" against welfare increases and other bills that were antipoor, if not antiblack...
...Post script I'd feel a lot better about the 25 cent stamp ["The Twenty-five Cent Stamp," Marianne Szegedy-Mazak, November] if they let Frederick Douglass stay on it...
...WILLIAM ALLEN Blade Valley, North Carolina...
...Unlike race and religion, weight can, for the most: part, be controlled by an individual through discipline and exercise...
...GEORGE GIBSON Upper Montclair, New Jersey Charles Peters replies: Our concern was not that the overpayments exceeded the underpayments, but that together they represented far too many mistakes by the Social Security bureauracy...
...We broke into several camps...
...For Joe Biden, et al...
...DAVID MAHLER Seattle, Washington Sneering at windmills In your December issue ["Tilting at Windmills"] you mention the fact that more than four million Social Security recipients were paid the wrong amount between 1981 and 1986...
...Blacks are rightfully, I think, skeptical of arguments that, however logical, conclude with them standing, hat in hand, hoping for favors from white politicians...
...But the public disapproval of lawyers reflects a growing consensus that the social costs of litigating everything now far outweigh the benefits...
...In the late 1930s, General Motors and Standard Oil formed a transit company of their own for the purpose of burying the existing Pacific Electric System...
...KEITH ROBERTS Reutherford, New Jersey Paul Glastris replies: The answer to Mr...
...It's a bad mistake to lump together those who are unfortunate by their own folly and those who really are victims...
...In doing so we encourage irresponsibility, we dilute our sympathy for real victims, and we sap our resources for helping them...
...It is true that the threat of tort liability is about the only discipline on American industry in this age of regulatory indolence...
...My windmill: the illusory statistic...
...Only when the Martin Luther King Holiday bill came up for a vote would three or four white lawmakers from over 40 percent black districts vote with the black caucus...
...First, why are these smokers and their families victims...
...Logically, those who could afford to chose private auto over diesel bus...
...A major reason such suits are long shots is that tobacco company lawyers cook up their own "novel" defenses, such as their crafty courtroom attacks on the scientific links between cigarettes and fatal diseases...
...As to the second question, I simply don't agree that suing tobacco companies is an abuse of the tort system...
Vol. 20 • February 1988 • No. 1
